Small Scenes of Summer

In the last three months, I’ve: finished up 2 years of Peace Corps service; moved into a new apartment in New York City; wandered through 12 airports on layovers, customs checks, and diverted flights; journeyed by bus, plane, train, car, and even boat to visit old friends and new cities across Russia and New England; settled down long enough to sift through several hundred pictures of these adventures. And it’s not even August yet.

As I make the transition from Peace Corps volunteer 3rd Goal proponent extraordinaire to full-time graduate student, I’m trying to be intentional about how this space will change. In the meantime, I’ve been inspired by the #VantagePoint project (an initiative from the folks at Light.Co who are developing new camera technology) to get back into sharing snaps from my travels.

From the Kazan River to Casco Bay, my travels this summer have afforded some beautiful sunset views — being so far north, sunset has ranged from 10pm to 1am, giving me plenty of daylight to explore these cities and enjoy the outdoors.

Gorgeous sunsets in popular tourist spots have meant vying for the prime #VantageSpot with tons of other people — learning to take a step back or swap out of selfie mode on my camera have made for some nice shots (my favorite being the anachronistic French general handling a smart phone, taken in the Alexandrovskyy Garden before a reenactment of a battle from the Napoleonic Wars). Stay tuned for stories from Russia and the end of my time in Kyrgyzstan!